The "How to organize a FAD" page at <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_organize_a_FAD> previously stated that budget is "the absolute first priority". Now, maybe this is my hippie upbringing speaking, but I don't think it's _really_ all about the money. I've changed this to "this needs to be a very early priority" — it's still important, but I think the first priority in planning a FAD should be thinking about the impact the FAD is intended to have. That should be both in concrete terms of "What're we gonna get done?" but also _"What does this do for the project overall?"_ (Or, I guess, if you _do_ want to make it all about the money, "Why should we spend on this?") I'm going to pull out this ASCII chart again: /============+============+=============++=============+=============\ | | | || | | | Resources | Activities | Outputs || Outcomes | Impact | | | | || | | +------------+------------+-------------++-------------+-------------+ |What we |What we do |The direct ||The specific | Mission and | |have: time, |with our |products of ||change in the| vision; our | |money, code,|resources |our ||world due to | long term | |hardware... | |activities ||those outputs| effect | +============+============+=============++=============+=============+ | Things we can affect directly || Out of our direct control | +============+============+=============++=============+=============+ | <----- planning flows right to left ---------< | +============+============+=============++=============+=============+ | >------ effort flows left to right ----------> | \+===================================================================/ Starting with money is planning from the left side — it's a resource. This doesn't result in the best use of those resources. Obviously, there are pragmatic *limits* to those resources so that number needs to go into the on-the-ground planning, but if we start from the change we want to effect, we can better judge if a particular goal fits within what we have, or is worth finding more by reallocating or fundraising. And, it avoids overspending based on "well, we've got this budget, so let's make sure to use it up". Additionally, unless there is objection, and I hope there isn't, I'm adding wording that FADs which are connected to the Council's accepted 12-18 month community goals will be given priority. I also have another pair of changes to propose. Currently, the procedure is to work with OSAS on the budget and with the FPL for final approval. I have suggested tweaks to both of these. In line with the Council plan overall, I'd like to change the "work with the OSAS team to figure out the budget" part to "work with the Fedora Council". As defined in the Council charter, facilitating decision making on focusing the OSAS-provided Fedora community budget is one of the Fedora Community Action and Impact Coordinator's roles (hi Remy!), and this seems like a natural place to do that. (We could also make the wording "work with the Community Action and Impact Coordinator" rather than council at large.) Of course, the Council (and Remy, who *is* on the OSAS team inside of Red Hat) would work with OSAS in the determination — the change isn't in where the money comes from ultimately, but in the contact point for organizers (and in transparency and visibility). Second, I'd like to change the FPL approval to Fedora Council approval. This is largely a matter of transparency — usually, these requests are mailed to me directly, and I think it'd be better to talk about them here instead. (This obviously makes a lot of sense in conjunction with talking about the budget with the council too.) Not that I have a problem being the approver per se, but it'd be nice to have this process be more open to community input. Thoughts, comments, objections, refinements? -- Matthew Miller <mattdm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Fedora Project Leader _______________________________________________ council-discuss mailing list council-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/council-discuss
